Competitive Drama - Take 37
*Action*
It looks like we have to step in here and say a few words to stop the incestuous rumors that always seem to fly around when players assume every bit of information they see on the internet is true.
I will start by saying I don't know the full details of all the accusations and stories. Below is just a few points from an official perspective and from my own personal perspective.
1) Z8Games as a company does not favor LifeLine, or Ace Gaming or whoever you want to call them.
The funny part is that none of the competitive players can actually stay on one team from season to season so there isn't actually any chance of favoritism happening since for the most part we have no idea who is on teams anymore.
2) ESG Winter and Spring series cheques went out at the same time. Ace Gaming lives 2 minutes from Toronto. Others were in the states which would take longer. It's possible that the titles of the cheques were mislabeled (as in maybe they were spring when they should have been winter?) but in either way they should be out and received. If you have not received them please let us know.
We made our apology about the mishap with the time it took to send out those cheques, we have made steps to correct this moving forward and we don't expect this to be a problem. This was a Z8Games issue and not an ESG issue.
3) We've seen some sort of accusation made for a ghosting incident that took place during the CFS Season 1 qualifiers.
It doesn't look like there is any hard evidence or proof for this.
It didn't stop Carbon from winning.
Iceman would not have anything to gain from ghosting. And the comments that he was in the match were obvious because he was asked to observe the games as official representatives because Z8 staff members could not always be there.
So hopefully this clears up a few things, that we aren't specifically favoring a team, that there seems to be no real hard evidence and that this match was approaching multiple years ago and doesn't affect any current status. And that there was really nothing to be gained by it anyways. Some conversation about Ghosting means nothing.
As a personal aside to the competitive players:
Ace Gaming remains the only team with a steady roster and a plan to promote the game and community and practice regularly with the intention of winning.
There have been a few teams in the past who have done this, and as long as no one cheats have done well.
Considering that most of our competitive scene has come from years of 1.6 and years of CrossFire, a small amount of dedication to the game and to one team would actually net you a lot of money.
There is over $10,000 going out to players this summer in cash from 2 well known tournament organizers. Instead of spending time complaining on the forums you could be playing the game and winning real money.
For years the competitive community complained that we didn't spend money or time on them. And now when we do, they do nothing but complain at each other. I guess now since you can't complete we aren't doing such and such you have to find something else to moan about.
I've never had a chance to make that kind of money playing a video game before, 2-3 grand for a summer of playing video games?? Seems excellent to me. But it would seem that most players are content just ignoring the cash and spending their time yelling at each other on an internet forum. I guess that doesn't bother the actual teams looking to compete cause it means more money for them.
That's just my thoughts on the matter.
It's unfortunate that this matter of fingering pointing has caused some of the more colorful and enjoyable members of our competitive community to rethink their involvement and status.
To them I would like to say thank you for your loyalty and for playing the game. I can no longer spend infinite amount of hours trying to convince you to stay and play. We have tried our best to put money and time into the competitive scene and would hope that you stick around to enjoy it.
But if not, then thanks for playing and being a part of the community, hopefully new comers into the scene will be able to look past some of these random assumptions and will take your places as respectful, followed and skilled players of CrossFire.
It looks like we have to step in here and say a few words to stop the incestuous rumors that always seem to fly around when players assume every bit of information they see on the internet is true.
I will start by saying I don't know the full details of all the accusations and stories. Below is just a few points from an official perspective and from my own personal perspective.
1) Z8Games as a company does not favor LifeLine, or Ace Gaming or whoever you want to call them.
The funny part is that none of the competitive players can actually stay on one team from season to season so there isn't actually any chance of favoritism happening since for the most part we have no idea who is on teams anymore.
2) ESG Winter and Spring series cheques went out at the same time. Ace Gaming lives 2 minutes from Toronto. Others were in the states which would take longer. It's possible that the titles of the cheques were mislabeled (as in maybe they were spring when they should have been winter?) but in either way they should be out and received. If you have not received them please let us know.
We made our apology about the mishap with the time it took to send out those cheques, we have made steps to correct this moving forward and we don't expect this to be a problem. This was a Z8Games issue and not an ESG issue.
3) We've seen some sort of accusation made for a ghosting incident that took place during the CFS Season 1 qualifiers.
It doesn't look like there is any hard evidence or proof for this.
It didn't stop Carbon from winning.
Iceman would not have anything to gain from ghosting. And the comments that he was in the match were obvious because he was asked to observe the games as official representatives because Z8 staff members could not always be there.
So hopefully this clears up a few things, that we aren't specifically favoring a team, that there seems to be no real hard evidence and that this match was approaching multiple years ago and doesn't affect any current status. And that there was really nothing to be gained by it anyways. Some conversation about Ghosting means nothing.
As a personal aside to the competitive players:
Ace Gaming remains the only team with a steady roster and a plan to promote the game and community and practice regularly with the intention of winning.
There have been a few teams in the past who have done this, and as long as no one cheats have done well.
Considering that most of our competitive scene has come from years of 1.6 and years of CrossFire, a small amount of dedication to the game and to one team would actually net you a lot of money.
There is over $10,000 going out to players this summer in cash from 2 well known tournament organizers. Instead of spending time complaining on the forums you could be playing the game and winning real money.
For years the competitive community complained that we didn't spend money or time on them. And now when we do, they do nothing but complain at each other. I guess now since you can't complete we aren't doing such and such you have to find something else to moan about.
I've never had a chance to make that kind of money playing a video game before, 2-3 grand for a summer of playing video games?? Seems excellent to me. But it would seem that most players are content just ignoring the cash and spending their time yelling at each other on an internet forum. I guess that doesn't bother the actual teams looking to compete cause it means more money for them.
That's just my thoughts on the matter.
It's unfortunate that this matter of fingering pointing has caused some of the more colorful and enjoyable members of our competitive community to rethink their involvement and status.
To them I would like to say thank you for your loyalty and for playing the game. I can no longer spend infinite amount of hours trying to convince you to stay and play. We have tried our best to put money and time into the competitive scene and would hope that you stick around to enjoy it.
But if not, then thanks for playing and being a part of the community, hopefully new comers into the scene will be able to look past some of these random assumptions and will take your places as respectful, followed and skilled players of CrossFire.
Comments
-
Just a question. I understand why you would say that there is no hard evidence, even given the video erick released. However, have you and staff taken time to watch the replays? Nobody ever watches the replays and they tell a lot.
On my own level, at this point in time nothing is accomplished by watching replays of matches in 2011.
Since we know at this moment in time, Iceman is not ghosting for anyone. Iceman, and ESG are official contracted partners. We pay them to run tournaments for us. Iceman doesn't ghost for anyone because it goes against their business principles.
Iceman is not some unknown teenager (apologies if that offends anyone). He is a business owner and partner and is getting paid to run tournaments for CrossFire. This is not some unknown fact.
CrossFire NA currently has 2 partners, NESL and ESG. Both under contract by us. etc etc etc.
In 2011, Iceman was a moderator and a big connection to the competitive community. He was able to be the eyes and ears for our staff members when our staff members (namely me) could not attend any specific tournament or event.
From what I can tell a conversation which was recorded from some members of lifeline back in 2011 talking about ghosting, and Iceman happened to be in the room as an observer in the game. To many people this seems to mean that he must have been somehow involved in a ghosting or cheating incident.
From what I understand the people who have come out to say that ghosting happened were people who have either been involved in cheating in the past, or are no longer involved with the teams today.
I do have to specifically note here that this is my understanding of the situation at current. I may not know the specific details. But we're talking about matches from 2011. If this is all people have to complain about then we have a deeper issue.
It seems to me that there is a lot of hate and resentment from the 1 year ban Carbon received for cheating (specifically a ghosting incident if I'm not mistaken).
The thing with that is that the ruling on the field stands, we're not in a position to just reverse the ban on play for that team because a couple members weren't involved, or are "better players", or who apologized.
I have shared drinks with Carbon, and good times at CFS Season 1, I was sad to know that a few of them were involved in these things in the competitions after, and I was sad for some of the members of Carbon who I respect and know were likely not directly involved.
Not to mention I have come out specifically in defense of the absurd red-dot nonsense that seems to come up all the time with various players. Come to the defense of players in Carbon, and players in LifeLine in the past because I know that they are just being victimized by the mob of people.
But the terms of that incident stand, we can't reverse them.
Now it just seems that people are digging into a 3-5 year history of the game to find some very thin story and piece together nonsensical evidence to try and support a theory they've already made their mind on.
The reason why we step in is to hopefully provide some elements people can trust in so far as that there is not a conspiracy happening at every moment in this game.
So after all that, no we have not observed the replays and likely are not going to bother doing so. Frankly, the accusations are absurd to begin with and even more so because this incident happened 3 years ago. -
Saidin the comp scene needs your help with advertising the leagues. So maybe u can make a reminder post for other players to see. Maybe make it on the Main page and on the client so we can get the word out and hopefully get more teams playing because idk if you heard but this upcoming Esg event only got 31 teams signed up. And probably only 15-25 will show up. Thanks!
-
Saidin, would you drop ESG/ESL if one could prove that their anti-cheats were bypassable, and it was possible to cheat in matches?
Every anticheat in history has been bypassed, ESG/ESL are no exception.
It's a cat and mouse game. Cheat developers come up with ways to cheat, anti-cheat developers try to detect them with updates. The cheat developer may try to update with a new method to get around the anti-cheat. But there is no shortage of people developing cheats for the game, and we are starting to see people develop cheats built specifically to bypass the specialized anti-cheats used by leagues.
ESG and ESL are here to run events for Z8Games and handle the logistics of running the tournaments. And more importantly, to promote competitive play in CrossFire. One of the tools we use to do that is our anti-cheat client. -
Saidin, I don't know why the moderators here are taking this lightly, now i'm not saying lifeline/iceman cheated, there isn't enough evidence to confirm/deny that. But.... This is a cfs qualifier we are talking about, it doesn't matter how long ago it was or how relevant it is now.
If you have taken the time to read some of the recent forum posts you will realize its no joke. There is legitimate evidence supporting the possibility of ghosting, and i realize iceman is a friend/business partner to you, but unfortunately a long forum post isn't going to make this go away.
The problem with this whole situation (imo) is consistency, carbon was banned from just about the same evidence as what is presented now. It honestly makes sense to unban carbon if you aren't going to ban (or take some action on) blitzd & malte. This is one of the reasons people are saying things about "favoritism", its like you give kanata the benefit of the doubt because they are experienced and have been around the game awhile. That is not OK when the same treatment isn't given to other teams.
Why look at replays from 2011? I said it once and i willl say it again.... it was a CFS QUALIFIER, do you want people in the future knowing that mods won't look into cheating as long as they don't confess to what they did? It doesn't make sense to just take Icemans word when there may be evidence contradicting it right in front of you. Maybe it supports Iceman, but we won't know until someone takes the time to put the bandi/replays together. It is ridiculous how this isn't a higher priority than it is... If this was socks or carbon i feel like this whole situation would have been dealt with differently.
To be h0nest, the competitive community would be worse without Kanata/Iceman if something were to happen to them. But that still doesn't give them the right to cheat without being punished. -
-
Make everyone use anti cheats. It works better than x traps at least ��
I'm sure if u guys merge anti cheats into the game there will be less "hackers" overall because it detect hack programs that r on the PC and ban them instantly.
Wouldn't last 12 hours before there are ways around the ac. Don't put your money on it, there is people who are dedicated to this stuff (they make a profit from doing stuff like this). -
Wouldn't last 12 hours before there are ways around the ac. Don't put your money on it, there is people who are dedicated to this stuff (they make a profit from doing stuff like this).
Well they should just go pray to league of legend staffs and ask them to make this game unhackable. -
I'm not saying lifeline/iceman cheated, there isn't enough evidence to confirm/deny that.
Carbon was banned from just about the same evidence as what is presented now.
These two lines are contradictory.
The person admitted to the actions.
The real unfortunate part of that whole thing is that if they never admitted to their actions then things would likely have turned out very differently.
This Lifeline one is a cold-case that doesn't require revisiting. And the worst part is it doesn't matter what we say.
There can be about as much evidence put forward which would throw the case out, as what users are claiming is enough evidence to submit the case in the first place. And in the end, the only thing we can say is that we feel there would be no gain from "ghosting". Clearly there wasn't even if it was true because LifeLine didn't beat Carbon that year.
The problem is we're only going to be "right" if we validate the assumption. And since we can't validate the assumption then we're always going to be wrong no matter what we say.
As for promoting, yes that is something we need to do more of. Look for some developments happening to that regard this month. -
How do you know? david got paid for w/e he did
This so dumb, all you saying is " oh i know iceman, he wouldnt do that" wtf is that?
The only way I'm going to be able to change your mind is if I said "Iceman ghosted and Lifeline is banned".
But since we can't say that because it can't be proven, anything else we say is going to be used to create a conspiracy to validate your original assumption. -
Well they should just go pray to league of legend staffs and ask them to make this game unhackable.
The other game could have cheats just as easy, heck it already probably does.. Its just there isn't much stuff you can do on an mmo compared to fps.
There's a lot of room for improvements on this version but since the developers pay no attention its their choice. I've seen* other versions of this game that have better measures against hack features, which we will probably never see here. Like for instance how in another version you can client error for using an aimbot and here people aimbot the entire match. Not that I've tried myself, just closley vieiwng websites/videos and information thats been given to me. -
-
[GM]Saidin wrote: »These two lines are contradictory.
The person admitted to the actions.
The real unfortunate part of that whole thing is that if they never admitted to their actions then things would likely have turned out very differently.
This Lifeline one is a cold-case that doesn't require revisiting. And the worst part is it doesn't matter what we say.
Not at all, in my opinion there isn't enough evidence to ban lifeline but it's the same evidence that was presented in the carbon case. So to be consistent it would be fair to ban lifeline as well.
Look at what i have bolded, this bothers me. Just because it was years ago doesn't mean it should be overlooked. I will agree with you if you tell me iceman/kanata won't ever ghost again, but that isn't the point.
Anyways, i don't want to argue in circles with you i just wanted to say how i felt about it. Im sure x0tek will have pages of rant for you soon enough lol. -
So if you win the matches you ghosted in, but lose the ones you didn't it's ok?
If I remember correctly. Carbon ghosted in WCG. They didn't win that tournament either.
No.
I am only going on what I have in front of me, which seemed to be much less evidence. So the point was "given there is less evidence, why bother arguing the point since it isn't going to change the outcome of something that happened in 2011."
Given that there apparently seems to be further evidence, the above may not be true. I would never use that "as a case".
This is a lose-lose-lose situation for us no matter what happens or what evidence is presented.
At least in the Carbon's case, the issue was fresh and the person came forward and admitted to what happened. I'm not entirely sure what specific evidence people are alluding to that is the same. -
Also, I can't help but find it ironic that everyone in the community is quick to take down whoever it is happens to be at the top.
Carbon wins so they must hack or ghost or whatever it is. And everyone was calling for their heads.
Now Ace Gaming (or whoever members were in it) wins, so they must have hacked or ghosted (in 2011). Now everyone is calling for these guys heads.
What will happen when another team wins? They obviously must have hacked, or ghosted as well right? -
[GM]Saidin wrote: »Also, I can't help but find it ironic that everyone in the community is quick to take down whoever it is happens to be at the top.
Carbon wins so they must hack or ghost or whatever it is. And everyone was calling for their heads.
Now Ace Gaming (or whoever members were in it) wins, so they must have hacked or ghosted (in 2011). Now everyone is calling for these guys heads.
What will happen when another team wins? They obviously must have hacked, or ghosted as well right?
There are a lot of teams/players that barely look at the forums, so don't be so quick to call out the entire community like that. Any decent team that was ghosting in a CFS qualifer would be in the same position right now, but its pretty obvious ACE wasn't very liked before all this even happened. -
No where near the same evidence. Unless something else is presented that shows more evidence players should just call it quits and move on. I'm not siding with lifeline just pointing out the obvious.
http://forum.z8games.com/showthread.php?t=281732 -
The evidence is sketch's bandicams which have audio recording from the LifeLine mumble. I deleted mine for skyrim mods due to a small hard drive, so there was no point in me saying anything unless somebody had proof.[GM]Saidin wrote: »Also, I can't help but find it ironic that everyone in the community is quick to take down whoever it is happens to be at the top.
Carbon wins so they must hack or ghost or whatever it is. And everyone was calling for their heads.
Now Ace Gaming (or whoever members were in it) wins, so they must have hacked or ghosted (in 2011). Now everyone is calling for these guys heads.
What will happen when another team wins? They obviously must have hacked, or ghosted as well right?
Also, you seem to be throwing around Ace Gaming far too often from my perspective. LifeLine's roster was myself sketch blitzd malte ck. The core from Ace Gaming competed in the CFGL event as fg.Carnage, and later picked up blitzd/malte. After CFGL ended and LifeLine dissolved, blitzd/malte left and joined Carnage. Some time later they became Kanata and now Ace Gaming.
The sad truth is the "top" in this game has always been corrupt. Going all the way back to 2009. Fortunately, things are getting way better now than in the past. The near future looks good for CF, but I don't think that means you should disregard everything from the past.
Regardless, since in my opinion the alleged ghosting could only of occurred between malte and iceman, and both have denied it there isn't a lot to do here. No matter what sketch's bandicam shows when displayed with malte's pov and the overall map overview from the replays; if they deny it, it is no more than circumstantial evidence. -
mhmmm... is there is any plans for ghostmode tournaments this summer ? i mean... why there is always SnD tournament and no ghostmode tournament at all ?
I think your post is not related......
Ot more evidence to come soon enough I think -
[GM]Saidin wrote: »Also, I can't help but find it ironic that everyone in the community is quick to take down whoever it is happens to be at the top.
Carbon wins so they must hack or ghost or whatever it is. And everyone was calling for their heads.
Now Ace Gaming (or whoever members were in it) wins, so they must have hacked or ghosted (in 2011). Now everyone is calling for these guys heads.
What will happen when another team wins? They obviously must have hacked, or ghosted as well right?
Please stop posting, it makes me question your intelligence.
99% of the community had nothing but respect for Carbon. Just stop embarrassing yourself even further.
Categories
- All Categories
- Z8Games
- 1 Z8 Forum Discussion & Suggestions
- 15 Z8Games Announcements
- Rules & Conduct
- 2.5K CrossFire
- 710 CrossFire Announcements
- 712 Previous Announcements
- 2 Previous Patch Notes
- 320 Community
- 12 Modes
- 393 Suggestions
- 16 Clan Discussion and Recruitment
- 73 CF Competitive Forum
- 1 CFCL
- 16 Looking for a Team?
- 523 CrossFire Support
- 7 Suggestion
- 15 CrossFire Guides
- 37 CrossFire Off Topic